


But I'm rabid and hibernating simultaneously

by lesbijane



Category: Lumberjanes
Genre: Day two: favorite side character/mythical creature, Gen, Lumberjanes week 2020, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25262860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbijane/pseuds/lesbijane
Summary: Fox stares into the waterfall river. She can't go back to camp like this, right?She needs help. And lucky for her, there's someone right around the corner who can provide it.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	But I'm rabid and hibernating simultaneously

**Author's Note:**

> Daaay two! I originally was going with the favorite side character theme (none of the Zodiacs, since I've got *plenty* planned for them later...) but I realized that Fox fit both prompts for today, so here we are!
> 
> I realized that we never really got a backstory for Fox? So I made one... hopefully I'm not instantly proven wrong by canon, hah.
> 
> Title is from Stupid Intruders by The Vincent Black Shadow!

“Uh, hey, Voice?” Fox paced back and forth in front of the river. The waterfall it was connected to was flowing, steady and loud. If this were any other waterfall, the scene might have had a peaceful aura.

But something wasn’t right. Nothing ever really was right here.

Fox frowned, and tapped a claw on the nearby rocks. “Yoo-hoo, Voicey-poo! It’s me! Fox!”

Still silence. The sound of water flowing. Fox kept pacing.

“I know you can hear me!”

A bird chirped overhead. Fox sighed lightly.

“Fine.” She let her fur melt, bones shift, twisting herself into something different. “If you’re taking your sweet time, I might as well get comfortable for a while.”

She leaned over the edge of the river, peering at herself. She could barely even recognize her reflection anymore. It wasn’t really what she would have looked like – it was a guess. Taller. Frizzier hair. Braces off. Older. She’d never really know for sure what she would have looked like.

“Isn’t it funny?” She smiled at the waterfall, even though no red eyes were there to return the favor, “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I like being myself the best. But sometimes I’m more comfortable like this, even though it’s what I was running from.”

She tapped the water with a finger, watching the rest of her reflection ripple. “Guess I grew into it, huh? But the whole shapeshifting thing helps, too.”

Fox glanced back over at the waterfall, and frowned at it yet again. She let the fur grow back over her skin, clicked her spine back where it belonged, and stretched her four legs.

“Ugh. Fine. I’m coming back tomorrow, though. You know that.”

The waterfall kept flowing.

* * *

Her knee was scraped, dirt was on her face, and she couldn’t stop crying.

Fox shakily pushed herself back up, even though she was still dizzy from her fall. She didn’t want to cry, but she stung so bad she couldn’t help it.

A river. She could hear a river, and maybe a waterfall. Amanda always told her and the other girls that water helped injuries.

Not trusting herself enough to stand yet, Fox crawled carefully to it, and leaned her leg over the side. She rubbed some water into the scrape on her knee carefully, trying to wash away all the dirt that covered it.

Her tail. She remembered her tail.

She spun around, and felt the sudden burst of adrenaline fade when she saw it was still clipped onto her. She gently took it off, and hiccuped when she realized how loose the clip was attached to the tail.

She hugged it close to her. It was something fragile now. Something she probably shouldn’t wear out in public anymore. Something she could lose if it was tugged too hard.

She remembered how Paige laughed when she pulled it. When she said that she was going to rip it off.

How it was stupid to pretend to be a fox every day. How Fox wasn’t even her real name, it was _Kayla_.

How she just needed to grow up.

Fox looked down at the river. It was clearer than any other river she’d ever seen, and she could see herself reflected in it.

She scrunched up her nose. It felt all wrong. Human bodies were weird. She could never recognize her own face, and she never felt like other people.

She stood up, and clipped her tail back onto her pants. She stuck her tongue out at her own reflection. She wasn’t going to be a person anymore. It didn’t matter what Paige said.

“What’s wrong, little fox?”

Fox nearly jumped, and spun around to look behind her. The only thing out there was the forest, shifting calmly in the breeze.

“Wrong way. I’m over here.”

Fox turned a little, towards where the voice was coming from.

“Yes, yes… there. The waterfall, you’ve got it.”

Fox stared into the waterfall. There was something behind it, she could see its shadow. But she couldn’t quite tell what it was, aside from two big, glowing eye silhouettes.

“Don’t be alarmed.” It said, slowly, “I don’t mean you any harm. People only come here if they need help, you know. And I’m here to help. What happened, fox?”

Fox took a deep breath in and out. This forest was weird, she knew that already, and Amanda always told them to be careful. But this voice sounded the exact same way Amanda did when she was trying to calm them all down.

“I ran away. Paige tried to steal my tail, she was chasing me.” Fox ran her hand over the soft fake fur of her tail again. “She thought it was funny.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“It wasn’t!” Fox clenched her hands so tight her fingernails dug into her palms, “I wish she’d leave camp forever and I never have to see her ever again!”

“Well… we can’t exactly do that, now can we?”

Fox sighed, and released the tension in her hands. “No. We can’t.”

“But…” The voice said, “There’s something I could do. You know about the way this forest works, yes?”

“Um…” Fox paused for a second, “No?”

“Well, this place is very special. Magical, even.” The waterfall seemed to slow for just a moment, but Fox still couldn’t see what was behind it, no matter how hard she squinted. “There are creatures in here that you won’t ever see in the outside world. Mermaids. Werewolves. Yetis. Even shapeshifters.”

The voice’s words were very clear, “I can make sure they are _never_ able to take this from you, ever again.”

Fox felt something that she could only explain as wanting to wag her tail. “Promise?”

“I promise. But you have to be sure this is what you want.”

Fox took a deep breath. In, and out. “Yes. It is.”

A gust of cold summer air blew by. Fox could feel the fur on her tail prickle up, and then settle down as it went by.

Her ears twitched.

Her tail. She could feel her tail.

She spun around, trying to run fast enough to catch a good enough glimpse of it. It was soft, it was red and orange and brown in all the right places, it was hers.

She couldn’t help but laugh as she ran – she felt so free, so comfortable, so _right_ this way. She ran around in circles until she fell onto the grass, dizzy from all the spinning.

When she could finally stand up again, she wasn’t standing on two feet.

Reflected in the river yet again, her long snout, pointed ears, and soft fur was there to greet her.

Fox yipped happily, nearly running around and around once more. It was what she always expected things to be. Things were right now. Things made sense.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She kept rolling around on the grass, jumping up and down, doing everything any normal fox would as she spoke.

“Of course.” The voice was steady now. Serious. “You will owe me a favor, but that won’t come up quite yet. Until then, you can enjoy the magic the woods decided to share with you.”

Fox rolled onto her back, stretching out like a cat, “Sure thing, boss! I won’t let you down.” She nearly bolted upright, “Oh! Oh my gosh, my cabin! What time is it? Amanda’s going to _kill_ me if I don’t get back…”

“Don’t worry about that. You can change your shape, remember?” The voice was saying this in a tone Fox couldn’t entirely read, making her wonder if it was just trying to help her along, or scolding her for not knowing. “It will take some getting used to, but you can be anything you want to be now.”

Fox nodded once, and took a deep breath. It wasn’t as steady as the first time – it felt like molding her own shape into something else, like she was clay and her mind was sculpting. Trying to figure out how high or low normal ears were placed. Actually putting effort into making sure your spine worked a certain way. Would anyone notice if her freckles weren’t in the same order? She couldn’t even remember where they originally were.

But there was a human staring in the river back at her. Pamela wouldn’t know if her nose was a little off-center, she never looked at that. Amanda wouldn’t notice her arms or legs being a bit longer than they should be, she’d brush it off as a crazy tween growth spurt.

Fox smiled. It was like a secret.

She’d finally outfoxed them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! I'd just like to ask before the end that if you're going to comment, I'd prefer if no jokes about furries/fursonas are made - this fic was heavily inspired by experiences I've had as an autistic person, with the alienation from feeling "human," so it's pretty personal to me. :P


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